Travel reviews by Dr. FW from Saffron W - UK

"We had a second wonderful trip to Azura Benguerra, thank you for organising it!

The local staff were as welcoming, kind and lovely as before. The rooms were excellent as was the food.

We spend time on the reef each day which was fascinating with some very large specimens of a wide variety of fish and loads of turtles.

Highly recommended!"

"Case Rex feels as though it is on a cliff top, but it is just a few steps down to a gently shelving sandy beach. This means that at low tide, there are flat sandbars. It is a little way out of the centre, so good for families, or oldies such as ourselves. As you told us, it is a fairly simple place, and that was fine.

We were in a room that they are soon to convert to a conference room, so - while it was all perfectly adequate - it had been allowed to get a little shabby. The view was great and we were able to sit outside on the terrace.

The staff were sweet and willing to help (eg the coffee machine in the room did not match the plug sockets, so they found an adapter).

The restaurant was pretty good - a superbly succulent crab salad, lovely prawns etc."

"A stunning boutique hotel set right on a perfect sandy beach with rooms and service to die for.

The hotel has just 20 rooms - each its own little building in its separate semi-private garden opening out to the beach 20 paces away. We barely used shoes: just walked up the beach to the bar and restaurant area. Our room was very spacious and well appointed. Some romantic touches like twin outdoor showers, as well as an inside shower. A nice deck with plunge pool, sun loungers etc.

The beach is exceptionally clean. It is wide, and at high tide the sea comes to within 30 or 40 paces from the room, but at low tide it goes out a long way as the sandbars are very wide and flat. This makes for great variety during the day, and some interesting bird life (eg flamingoes in the next bay).

The food was delicious, and always individually prepared and well presented. Lots of fish, shellfish, varying daily. I had beef once which was tender and flavoursome.

Prior to going, we were not sure either about using a helicopter to get there, or about having “our own butler”. In fact, the heli ride gave us truly beautiful views over the azure, almost turquoise sea, and we enjoyed looking for dolphins and dugongs on the 8 minute flight. Likewise, Agostino, our butler - in reality, a designated staff member who was waiter at the restaurant and brought us a cocktail each evening in our room - got to know our likes and dislikes very quickly. He, like all the staff at this hotel, was a gentle, thoughtful and unassuming character, and could not have been kinder or worked harder to make our stay better.

Your website could be clearer that there is no house reef - snorkelling is a boat ride away (and costs a bit each time). We were unlucky that they had lost both divemasters and so the guy in charge of the water sports/dive centre was untried, did not know the reef or the water conditions, and was organisationally very weak. We did not dive a second time for those reasons.

We did a lot of snorkelling and the reefs and fish were amongst the best we have ever seen - we requested one particular guy, Paulo, as our guide each day and were able to have a boat to ourselves with him, and could stay in the water for as long as we wanted (1.5 hours +). He gently steered us towards the best time to go and then took us to good places where there were turtles, black tips, and a huge shoal of the beautiful and enticingly named sweetlips. Paulo is another gentle person, who had done the planting for the hotel (as it turned out as we got to know him) who walked an hour and a half each way to and from home every day.

As well as the wonderful staff, we liked the ethos of the hotel. We saw children lugging a bucket of crabs to the kitchen, and walking away happily holding their earnings. The hotel adds a suggested donation to the bill, and on the free round-the-island drive (the driver loved bird spotting for us), they show you the school and medical centre these monies have funded.

We absolutely loved it and are sure we will be back!"

"A huge thank you from all five of us for a fabulous trip, which went so well.

Your recommendation of Andrew was brilliant: he was a great guide and we loved his approach with his mobile safari, the staff and the meals, and particularly the campsites he took us to, their remoteness and beauty. We had amazing luck seeing most of the bigger mammals in the first couple of days - the great sightings carried on through to the very end of the trip with Andrew.

He was also great at birding, my recent passion, so we had funwith that too."

"We loved the location and setting at Nxai Pan Camp. The staff were more than friendly, and keen to give us the best time. The meals were delicious too.

Unfortunately there were heavy thunderstorms each day, which affected what we could do a bit, and led to some disappointing drives as the wildlife had scattered.

We did enjoy our trip to Baines Baobabs - magnificent on the edge of the pans."